Our Cleveland From the Inside walking tour takes a look at the interiors of some of downtown Cleveland’s coolest buildings. Today we look at the Main Building of the Cleveland Public Library. The library was originally founded in 1869 and will celebrate 150 years in Cleveland this year! The Main Building downtown opened in 1925. It was designed by Walker & Weeks, who designed many Cleveland Buildings including the Cleveland Federal Reserve.
The Main Building of the Cleveland Public Library houses the John G. White Special Collections on the third floor. John White was served as the President of the Board of Trustees for many years and help the library purchase many special and rare books through his donations. The Special Collections includes the largest chess library in the world, a folklore and a miniature book collection along with the Charles Schweinfurth collection of rare architectural publications.
Another cool part of the library is the old Reading Room on the first floor which today is an exhibition hall. The current exhibit is the World of Puppets exhibit featured a couple weeks ago here on our blog.
Check out the library on the Cleveland From the Inside walking tour on Mondays at 1:00 pm. Book at www.toursofcleveland.com.